November 23, 2017Why is the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show still a thing?

Okay, so look. We deserve nice things. And there’s nothing wrong with celebrating beauty. But isn’t there something wrong with celebrating one very specific size, shape and shade of beauty?

Because that’s what the Victoria’s Secret Fashion show does. For the past 22 years, the lingerie conglomerate has staged this huge production centred on a group of mostly blonde, mostly white, always thin, heavily made-up models strutting down a runway nearly naked. They are met by huge applause, both from the adoring crowd at the shows and from home audiences around the world. In America, the show is broadcast live on national television. Each year, the news cycle dedicates a good two months’ worth of content to it — the castings, the cuts, the selected, the wings.

Okay, I’m being a brat. But, come on. Does the world really have to stop to watch a bunch of young, physically starved and emotionally drained models draped in jewel-encrusted bras walk down a catwalk to the soundtrack of whoever sung that year’s biggest pop song someone else wrote for them?

It’s manufactured beauty on steroids, and it is perpetuating nothing but an unattainable idea of beauty and self-worth, an unhealthy obsession with looks and weight, and, let’s be honest, a really uncomfortable type of underwear.

This year’s show just took place in Shanghai, China, and controversy engulfed the event. Visas were revoked, Katy Perry was banned, and a young model faced “the hardest moment of her career” when she fell on the runway. None of this is the type of controversy Victoria’s Secret should face. This whole circus needs to wrap itself up before it turns 30.